


Floodgate

by kristen999



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Coda, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 19:46:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2594102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristen999/pseuds/kristen999
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve grapples for a lifeline. Coda to 5.07.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Floodgate

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you **esteefee** for her swift beta.

***

His thoughts are like flashes of light, too rapid and brief to hold onto. His dad siting on the chair on the lanai, alive and - 

Blood pools under Wo Fat's body, the man's brains splattered all over the floor; he's dead. The fucker's dead, no more torment, no more cat and mouse; Steve's breath catches in his throat in realization. His dad. God, no. _Please, no._

The ghost memory of his father morphs into the hard tile under Steve’s bare feet, the cold seeping under his skin, into his bones, turning the blood in his veins to sludge.

His dad is gone. A vice squeezes the air out of Steve's lungs and it's that wet towel all over again, like he's drowning, his training telling him to remain calm, his instructor's voice garbling in and out of his ear until it's swallowed up by a consuming buzz.

“Shhh, shhh; you're all right, you're all right.”

Steve hears Danny voice beak through the din, frantic and worried and _right there._

Steve blinks away drops of water from his face, stares at Danny's worried expression as he keeps talking to Steve, soft and steady, the cadence of his voice lulling the constriction in Steve's chest. His weight is held up between Danny and Chin, the two of them anchoring him.

“That's it,” Danny says, his smile forced, his arm tightening around Steve's waist. “Just a little further. You can do it.”

Steve nods. “Yeah,” he says voice ragged. The lights in the hall glow brighter, a fuzziness ghosting the edges of his vision. 

He presses forward to chase the daze away even as the walls spin nauseatingly around him. But he can’t close his eyes and be swept away again, so he sucks in another breath, feet stumbling slightly as Danny and Chin heft him more upright. 

“I gotcha,” Danny says in his ear, gasping heavily from carrying Steve's weight. “We're even going to take a little detour to avoid all these stairs.”

Steve doesn't even notice the stairs, but he catches Kono's constant backward glances, hears Grover talking on his cell phone barking orders, voice raised in demand of something. 

“I'm good,” Steve tells them. 

Because he can walk. He killed Wo Fat and his demented side kick. Broke the room apart with their bodies. He can put one fucking foot in font of the other. Except it's like running in quicksand, his legs sluggish, his body starting to shake so hard it makes him wonder if he's really even on his feet, or if this is just another course of electricity ripping through his muscles. 

Everything hurts. His neck, back, and chest. The very skin across his bones is still burning and bubbling. And his father is dead and Wo Fat won't stop calling Doris _their_ mother. 

“Steve, you can do it,” Chin coaxes beside him. “Just a few more steps - come on. See, we're going outside.”

Steve latches onto Chin's steady encouragement, tapping deep inside his reserves to keep going.

“The bus is meeting us,” he hears Grover in a rush. “I'll guide them over.”

A gust of wind washes over Steve's face, the salty air stinging Steve's lungs. The brightness of the day is overwhelming, like the white walls with flashes of Mary and him playing in the back yard and Dad telling them to wave at the camera.

No, no, no. He can't help the sob that escapes again, a weight crushing his chest, the buzz from earlier roaring in his ears.

“Steve, please, we've got you. _I've_ got you.”

“Danny?” Steve rasps, because he trusts Danny, searches for his voice, reaching out for him. 

“Right here, I'm right here.”

Steve feels Danny's warm weight beside him, gentle fingers cradling Steve's head. “It's okay. It's okay; you're okay. Promise.” 

And Steve leans into Danny, too exhausted and confused to do anything else, burying his face into Danny's neck from the stinging air. Wetness runs down his cheeks, his body shivering against the pain and phantom memories. Danny grips him closer as sirens begin wailing all around them. 

 

***

Steve's heart is going to rip its way out of his chest. He knows deep down it can't happen, but it doesn't stop the bubble of panic pressing against his sternum, his breathing laboring against the oxygen mask. He knows this feeling isn't real; it's temporary, the last syringe full of drugs still pumping through his veins.

He can see Danny hovering near by as the ER staff touch and prod Steve with gloved hands, words like 'erratic pulse' and 'elevated blood pressure' spoken over his head. 

“There are punctures to both arms. Also several to his neck,” someone says.

Too many people keep moving around his gurney, faces fuzzing in and out of view. Steve knows it's for the best. He needs the medical attention; his brain is swimming in chemicals. But a part of him wants to escape. Find cover away from the lights, from the hands all over his sensitive skin. 

“Hey, hey, Steve: look at me; come on, buddy.” Danny moves into view, mouth tight with emotion. “You're safe. You're going to be okay.”

Steve hangs desperately onto Danny's words, because he really needs a lifeline right now, someone to ground him. He locks onto Danny's face as an emergency room worker moves into view.

“Commander McGarrett, do you know anything about the drug you were given? Did you see any labels or hear any names?”

He has a few ideas based on how badly his veins burned when they'd been injected. How much his guts felt like they'd been turned inside out from the stuff pumped into the IV.

He stares at the physician, runs his tongue to wet parched lips, the overhead lights almost blinding. “I...I don't know.”

Danny reappears at the left side of the gurney, squeezing himself next to the doc, looking wrecked and angry. “We've got people collecting samples at the scene.”

Another staff member joins the overcrowding group, her demeanor professionally calm. “I have the commander's blood results. His electrolytes are all over the place, we're going to need to run some more chem panels.”

Steve doesn’t remember having blood drawn and he watches the nurse and physician turn away and speak quietly in the corner. He's so distracted trying to listen to them he doesn’t notice someone approach him with an IV needle. Steve bolts up, snatching his arm away. 

“Hey! What's the matter with you?” Danny yells at the nurse. “Did you not just hear about puncture marks? Are you not capable of putting two and two together in regards to the given situation? There was a reason why he wasn't given an IV to begin with.”

“Commander McGarrett is severally dehydrated; he needs fluids.”

Steve could grab the IV needle and slash the guy's carotid, probably take out most of the others with a few jabs to vital areas. His breathing is harsh in his ears, the faces of those in the room anxious, the nurse beside him backing away a few steps while another one slowly walks over with a syringe not so carefully hidden in her hand.

“Steve, look at me.” Danny says, sighing in relief when Steve obeys. “Good, that's good. Look, I know you've just been through the wringer and that you're feeling really shitty. But these people are here to help. Okay? I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere.”

Danny slips his hand into Steve's, rubbing a thumb over his knuckles, slow and soothing. Steve follows the path of Danny's thumb, relishing the connection, his eyes straying to the leather restraints still around his wrists, a swell of anger slowly superseding the panic. 

Danny's eyes follow Steve's gaze, his jaw tightening. “Oh, babe.” Steve sucks in a rapid breath when Danny slowly begins unfastening the left restraint, the leather falling to the floor. “Okay, let's take care of the right one.”

Steve starts removing the bond before Danny can reach it, roughly tossing it away with satisfaction. He stares at the red abrasions around wrists, his thoughts scattered, his breathing evening out a little. 

“That better?” Danny asks, resuming his spot beside the gurney.

“Yeah,” Steve says, his voice thin.

“Do you think you could allow them to give you an IV now?”

Steve feels flush of embarrassment, wipes a hand over his face, fingers still shaky. “Yeah.” He looks from Danny to the nurse. “I'm sorry. I...”

“Don't worry about it,” she says. “I'll be very quick, then we'll undo the restraints to your ankles.”

He watches her slip the needle in, but the liquid is clear; not dark, and his stomach doesn’t experience any stabbing pain. 

The physician calmly approaches the gurney. “We need to run an EKG of your heart to ensure there wasn't any damage caused by the electrical shocks or the chemicals you received. Then I want to get a head CT and chest x-rays.”

The doc waits a beat, giving Steve time to process. “Yeah, that's fine.”

The tests are not a matter of choice, but Steve appreciates the false feeling of control and he slowly lies back down on the gurney, his eyes tracking as much movement as possible. Danny standing sentry at his side, never moving. 

***

_You're not going to kill me? Are you, brother?_

Steve bolts awake, eyes darting around, taking in the curtain around his bed, the soft hum of machines, not a single sound of a drippy pipe. He hears the plastic legs of a chair scrape against the floor and Danny leans over him, a hand on Steve's shoulder, soft and comforting.

Steve eases back. “I'm fine,” he says even as he rubs a hand over his forehead, wincing at the pain.

“That's from a bullet graze, so I'd say you're far from fine.”

The heat in Danny's words are not directed at him. Steve knows when Danny is angry with him. Steve doesn't recall the bullet skimming his temple. He remembers aiming his weapon at Wo Fat, aware of Wo Fat's weapon pointed at Steve's own head. Steve had no problem pulling the trigger. 

Wo Fat was not his brother.

Steve takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly, triggering a cough and the phantom feel of water going down his throat. He sits up straighter in bed, breathing through the jag. 

“Here.” Danny hands him a plastic cup and Steve drinks greedily from it, Danny admonishing him. “Easy, easy.”

Finishing the cup, Steve rests his head back down and takes stock of his body, at all the sore and tender spots pretty much everywhere. There's an IV in the top of his hand, a pulse ox clipped to his finger, and EKG leads attached to his chest. All he wants is to sleep in his own bed.

“When do I get out of here?” he asks gruffly. 

“Whenever the doc says it's okay.”

Steve knows better to argue that point right now; he's too wrung out to even try. He shifts gingerly in bed, looking over at Danny. “I'm all right.”

“No, you're not.”

“I will be, Danny.”

He has to be. Steve won't let Wo Fat take anything else away from him. 

Danny moves around in his chair, his clothing wrinkled to hell, his face haggard and unshaven. “You know I'm here. You can talk to me.”

Steve swallows, nodding. Reports will need to be filled out, but he doesn’t know how much detail he'll go into regarding the CIA's manual on behavioral engineering. 

“Yeah,” Danny grumbles. “And I know you'll shove everything deep inside and pretend you weren’t just captured and tortured again by a maniacal man obsessed with you and your family.”

“He's not part of my family!” Steve snaps, hand balled into a fist. The stupid monitor beeps faster.

Danny holds both hands up in the air, forehead furrowed. “Whoa. I know that. We both do.”

But Doris had raised Wo Fat as a child, _as her child_ , and cared for and loved him. The thought makes Steve sick to his stomach, knowing Wo Fat and his mother shared a connection, a connection Steve lost so many years ago. That she abandoned one child for her job only to abandon him and Mary years later.

Wo Fat had ordered the death of Steve's father for his old man's investigation into the Yakuza. An empire created on the ashes of a botched hit and his mother's guilt. Steve's life was a fucked-up tangled mess of lies and deceit. 

“Steve?”

Steve steels himself, fortifying the walls before his thoughts, securing them far away. 

“Steve? Come on, talk to me.”

But Steve shakes his head, wiping at his face, putting as much as distance between him and the pain. Buckling it down. 

“Damn it, Steve.”

Steve closes his eyes against Danny's frustration, turning his head away to tune out the world. Danny sighs, frustrated, and instead of walking away, rests a hand on Steve's arm. 

*** 

Danny drives him home, and Steve flashes to being chauffeured around by a very different Danny in an aloha shirt and sporting a constant upbeat smile. Steve shakes his head at the memory.

“Remembering another dream?” Danny asks, side-eying him with concern.

“Wasn't a dream.”

“Okay, hallucination.”

“No.”

It's not a lie. Not really. Bits and pieces of things flash in his head at the oddest moments, vestiges of a world he never wants to revisit. He's had a few flashbacks late at night and again that morning. It was something that would fade away with time according to his doctor. 

He gets out of the Camaro on autopilot, Danny following close behind him. Steve wants to tell him it's okay to go home, but can't force the words past his lips, so he opens the door to his house, a flood of memories assailing him as soon as he walks inside.

_Mary with tiny pigtails running around the house in her diapers._

_The smoke alarm blaring from the burnt roast in the oven, Doris opening all the windows while giggling despite herself._

_Dad readying the fishing gear, carrying the tackle box with a wide, enthusiastic grin. “You ready, Steve?”_

He's not prepared for his walls to come crumbling down so quickly, and Steve bits his lip, marching out of the living room, swinging open the French doors leading toward the lanai. He doesn’t stop to take off his shoes, hurrying over to the edge of the beach, to the two empty chairs side by side. 

_“I'm glad you're home son.”_

Steve feels something uncurl in his belly, his chest hitching in resistance to emotions too big to contain anymore. He wants his dad. He wants to go hiking with him again, to watch the sunrise on a Sunday, to hug and celebrate the holidays with. To fill the hole in his heart that gets ripped apart whenever he allows his walls to slip.

It's too much, too raw, and Steve sits on the chair and begins removing the tennis shoes Kono had brought him in the hospital. 

“Whoa, what are you doing?”

“Going for a swim.” Steve has on board shorts. 

“No, you're not.”

Steve stands up, pulling his T-shirt over his head, his movements painful and clumsy. “Danny...”

“Don't Danny me. You have a concussion from where a bullet grazed your skull. You're skull, Steven. You've got bruises on top of bruises.” Danny moves closer, grabbing Steve's bicep, gently squeezing his arm. “You have burns.”

Steve looks down at his torso and tries to ignore the odor of topical cream and the itch of sterile dressings. His muscles quiver with adrenaline, chest heaving, but Danny rests his other hand on Steve's shoulder, anchoring him once again. 

“Talk to me Steve. Stop bottling it inside. Let it out before it consumes you.”

“I...” Steve looks over at the empty chair and feels his heart stuttering, grief he's never really let go releasing at last. “I want my dad. I want him to be alive, I...”

Danny pulls him into an all encompassing embrace, his arms wrapping around Steve's back, holding him while Steve gives in to his body's trembling. Years of remorse and guilt uncork with every choked breath.

Danny pulls him down and kisses the top of Steve's forehead, then presses the side of his face against Steve's. “That's it babe. Let it go. I got you. I got you.”

Steve leans into Danny's hold, Danny rocking them slightly, whispering, “I know how you feel, I know how much it hurts.”

And it hits Steve, the familiar grief in Danny's voice, and the death of his brother still raw. Steve pulls away, the wetness on his face matched by the fresh tears in Danny's eyes. “I'm sorry, Danny. I'm so sorry.”

“Don't be, you hear me?” Danny braces his hands on both sides of Steve's jaw, looking at him with such love. “I'm just so glad you're alive. You scared the hell out of me. I thought you were dead. God, Steve.”

Steve doesn’t have any words; he's used them all up. But Danny isn't done, and he wipes at his eyes, looking over at the house. “Come on, we're not staying here. Not tonight.”

“We?” Steve asks.

“Yes, we. Now come on, you're coming home with me. No arguments.”

Steve glances at the sea, his gaze lingering a moment at the empty chairs. “Yeah, okay,” he says, following Danny away from the beach.

Steve has finally found a way to let go an anchor to his past and is moving forward.

***

fini-


End file.
